165 Tons Of Tomatoes Used For The World’s Biggest Food Fight, La Tomatina

Yesterday Spain hosted the world’s biggest food fight, a.k.a. La Tomatina. Yes, the very same one that involves painting the town red with squashed tomatoes. The annual food fight was held a few kilometers away from Valencia, Spain and more than 20,000 people were in attendance of the same.

Needless to say, the Tomatina Festival used up quite a mammoth amount of tomatoes. According to a report by Reuters, hundreds of thousands of pounds of tomatoes were loaded onto six trucks on 29th August, Tuesday to head for the Spanish town of Buñol. In fact, approximately 165 tons of tomatoes was used for the event.

According to La Tomatina’s official website, before 2013 anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 (reported to be 50,000 in 2012) people crammed into this huge tomato fight, greatly expanding Buñol’s 9,000 person population. However, since 2013 official ticketing has been in place limiting the number of participants to just 20,000 people.

Though there are a number of stories about the origin of La Tomation, most believe that the iconic tomato festival can be traced back to a street brawl that occurred during a parade in 1945. And now, it is celebrated every year with much gusto on the last Wednesday of August. Learn more about the festival here.

Binge eater by day and binge watcher by night, Ankita is fluent in food, film, and Internet. When she’s not obsessing over the hottest trends, tacos, and the perfect author’s bio, you can find her under a pile of Jeffery Archer’s novels or looking for the nearest wine shop.